Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: AIRPORTS (90%); DESTINATIONS & ATTRACTIONS (77%); WEALTHY PEOPLE (67%); BABY BOOMERS (56%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (81%)
GEOGRAPHIC: COLORADO, USA (79%); NEW YORK, USA (79%); FLORIDA, USA (79%); NEW JERSEY, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: July 13, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
CORRECTION-DATE: July 20, 2008

CORRECTION: An article last Sunday about hitchhiking on private jets misspelled a clothing company's name in describing a cashmere cardigan worn by a hypothetical hitchhiker. The company is Loro Piana, not Piano.
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: RIDE SHARING: Hitchhikers have come a long way from the days of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in ''It Happened One Night.''(PHOTOGRAPHS BY GORDON GRANT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES(AIRPLANE)

EVERETT COLLECTION GENEROUS HOSTS)

GENEROUS HOSTS: Janet and Leonard Tallerine frequently shuttle friends to Houston, New Orleans and East Hampton, N.Y.(PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC KAYNE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. ST8)

SMART GUEST: Steven Stolman advises invitees to bring food.(PHOTOGRAPH BY NEIL RASMUS/PATRICKMCMULLAN)(pg. ST9)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

590 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
July 13, 2008 Sunday

Correction Appended

Late Edition - Final
DATEBOOK
SECTION: Section TR; Column 0; Travel Desk; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 350 words
PORTLAOISE, IRELAND

The World Fleadh (www.theworldfleadh.com) is called Ireland's biggest Irish and Celtic music festival. This year's event is scheduled to take place July 31 through Aug. 4 about 40 miles southwest of Dublin and will feature performances by the singer Shane MacGowan (formerly of the Pogues), left, the singers Sharon Shannon and Moya Brennan, the singer and songwriter Siobhan O'Brien, the Irish balladeers the Wolfe Tones, and the fiddler Frankie Gavin, with the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra and special guests. There will also be ceili (traditional Irish dance) workshops set to live music, children's activities, crafts for sale and busking (street performance) competitions. Not all ticket prices for performances are available, but they range from about 17.45 euros, about $27.75, at $1.59 to the euro, to about 46.20 euros.

REDONDO BEACH, CALIF.

In the movie -- and now Broadway musical --''Xanadu,'' Sonny, a struggling artist/entrepreneur, inspires a Greek muse to visit him through his chalk mural on the Venice Beach boardwalk. Imagine what a group effort could bring. The Sixth Annual Chalk Art Festival and Live Music is scheduled to take place on Aug. 23 from noon to 4 p.m. at the Redondo Beach Pier. Free chalk will be given to the first 150 registrants, but whoever wants to participate can do so, including children. The awards ceremony, at which the $500 grand prize will be awarded, will feature live drumming and blues music. The theme for this year's competition will be ''Fanta-Sea'' (www.visitredondo.com).

VALENCIA, SPAIN

The Grand Prix of Europe, a Formula One race, will visit the Mediterranean city for the first time on Aug. 24, with practice rounds beginning Aug. 22. About 26 million euros went into transforming Valencia's streets into a 3.4-mile-long competition course that will wind around the harbor, including the new Juan Carlos I Marina. Eleven international teams are scheduled to compete, and half a million spectators are expected. Remaining tickets for the three-day weekend range from 250 to 480 euros (www.valenciastreetcircuit.com).

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: ARTS FESTIVALS & EXHIBITIONS (90%); FESTIVALS (90%); MUSIC (90%); JAZZ & BLUES (78%); CLASSICAL MUSIC (73%); MUSICAL THEATER (73%); SONG WRITING (73%); DANCE (72%); ART & ARTISTS (72%); FORMULA ONE RACING (63%); SINGERS & MUSICIANS (90%)
GEOGRAPHIC: DUBLIN, IRELAND (91%) CALIFORNIA, USA (79%) IRELAND (91%); UNITED STATES (79%); SPAIN (71%); EUROPE (58%); MEDITERRANEAN (52%)
LOAD-DATE: July 13, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
CORRECTION-DATE: July 27, 2008

CORRECTION: A report in the Comings & Goings column on July 13 about the Redondo Beach, Calif., Chalk Art Festival and Live Music on the Redondo Beach Pier on Aug. 23 misstated the time the music would be performed. It follows the awards ceremony, from 4 to 8 p.m.; it does not take place during the ceremony.

A report in the Comings & Goings column on July 13 about the Redondo Beach, Calif., Chalk Art Festival and Live Music on the Redondo Beach Pier on Aug. 23 misstated the time the music would be performed. It follows the awards ceremony, from 4 to 8 p.m.; it does not take place during the ceremony.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIK JACOBS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

591 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
July 12, 2008 Saturday

Late Edition - Final

Chasing an American Dream
BYLINE: By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1186 words
The sun had barely pierced the indigo morning sky when Francisco J. Perez made the call. He gripped the street pay phone and spoke of his knack for spreading concrete, his expertise in carpentry, his love for painting. He paced and fidgeted, picking at his jagged, mud-encrusted fingernails, and then slammed down the receiver in triumph.

On this day, unlike the week before or that day in March when the bosses tricked him into working without pay, he would make money.

By 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the street pageant of day laborers had begun. Dozens of burly men in dusty Timberlands joined Mr. Perez on the four corners at Ditmas and Coney Island Avenues in Brooklyn. They rolled up their sleeves and tightened their belts, hoping that a flash of brawn would bring passing construction vans to a halt. The less robust among them whipped out immigration papers, some on the verge of disintegration, praying that on this day, their legal status might give them an edge.

To watch the shape-up of day laborers at one New York City intersection is to glimpse desperation, entrepreneurship and clannishness take form and then dissolve in three hours -- three turns of the clock in the corner Dunkin' Donuts, 180 jumps of the minute hand on their scratched-up Casio wristwatches.

By 9:30 or 10, the construction vans were gone and only a dozen or so of the nearly 50 who had gathered actually got work. The unsuccessful began their tired walks back home, but they knew that the odds would still get them out of bed the next morning.

From the start, prospects on Wednesday looked dim. Traffic was light. The sun gave a hint of the afternoon's heat. They stared as each car passed a construction supply shop across the street, waiting to jump at the screech of brakes.

Mr. Perez, a 22-year-old Honduran immigrant, sat alone in the shade, using his work clothes as a cushion.

That morning, at the recommendation of a friend, he had called a construction company to make his pitch and arrange for the pickup.

Within the group of day laborers that formed on this day, Mr. Perez's success bred quiet jealousy. On his corner, men from Guatemala, Ecuador, and Mexico stood at a distance, chatting about the outrageous joke on the radio the day before, the good-looking girl in the supermarket, and how hard it was to get jobs.

Mr. Perez, electrified by the $85 in sight for 10 hours of work, was optimistic. A single man with skin darkened by his days in the sun, he said he looked forward to coming to the corner each day.

''For me, this is a good life,'' he said in Spanish. ''If I knew English, I would have a better job, but this isn't bad at all.'' At 6:45, the black construction van came and whisked him away.

The remaining men arranged themselves by region, Latin Americans in one spot, Pakistanis in another, Nepalese and Tibetans in their own huddle. Down the block from Mr. Perez, the group of Pakistani men began their morning ritual of smoking and snacking. They puffed cigarettes and picked berries from the mulberry trees, licking each morsel on their purple-stained hands. This was breakfast. ''Eat,'' they told each other. ''Eat!''

Standing at a distance was the group's reclusive, white-whiskered elder. They called him Beardman, and he tried to wave down vans with his hitchhiker's thumb. In the middle of the gathering stood Jacky Sing, a homeless man who seemed hopeful of getting a job, but in the meantime drank a Budweiser and showed off his overgrown toenails.

The eight Pakistani men talked about the hard life in America -- how everything was fine until this year, when the construction jobs began to vanish. Mohammad Ejaz, 58, said he was getting about half the number of jobs he did last year. Zahid Shad, 41, said he had worked four days in the past two months.

Tariq Bukhari, 45, said he came to this country five years ago looking for a way to support his five children back home.

''People have a dream that America has big money,'' Mr. Bukhari said. ''You shake a tree and money falls. That's a big dream. It's not true.''

Across the street, 19-year-old Lucas Puac waited with three other Guatemalans hoping that youth and flexibility would make them stand out. Mr. Puac, an illegal immigrant, said he had built a reputation with several contractors and typically worked four or five days a week, usually painting or helping spread concrete. But he said he felt abused by the low wages, which amounted to $600 to $1,000 a month.

''The bosses know we're illegal,'' Mr. Puac said in Spanish, ''but they don't think we're entitled to a decent living.'' Around 8:15, a van pulled into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot, and Mr. Puac and his friends crowded around. It was a false alarm; they already had enough workers.

The intersection's center of gravity lay cater-corner to Mr. Puac, outside the Three Star Food Mart. It was there that the rookies came to network and the old pros, eager to tout their expertise, flaunted paint-spattered T-shirts and saw-eaten jeans.

The food market is also a nexus of daily conflict. At least once a week, Shiraz Azam, a cashier who works the 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. shift, calls the police to break up the swarm gathered at the storefront. The crowds have become so rowdy, he said, that the store moved its fruit and vegetable stand inside.

''Sure, everyone needs a job,'' he said. ''But what do they do? They throw garbage and bother customers. Don't interfere in someone else's job.''

The two dozen or so laborers outside the store were primarily in their 20s and 30s, Central American, and illegal immigrants. A reporter's notepad and camera aroused fears of an undercover immigration operation and sent some scattering to the back streets for a while.

Bryam Tax, a former schoolteacher who said he paid $8,000 to be smuggled into the United States from Guatemala last summer, was one of the few who did not get skittish. In Brooklyn, he shares a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with 12 other laborers and sleeps in a bunk bed. He dreads the morning routine, he said, but he has to support his wife and 2-year-old son.

''In Guatemala, we didn't earn as much, but at least there was nice living space,'' he said in Spanish, his metallic front teeth glistening. ''It's very hard work.''

On the same corner, Pasang N. Sherpa, 35, stood in a huddle of Tibetans and Nepalis. They helped each other with the foreign English phrases, passing them down their line, each one contributing a word or two of translation.

Mr. Sherpa, who tries to send money every three months or so to his four children and wife in Tibet, was pessimistic from the beginning. ''There are no jobs,'' he said. ''No good.''

When Mr. Sherpa showed up at the corner at 6:40, he said he would leave no later than 9 if he did not get work. But as 9 came and went, his hopeful stare down Coney Island Avenue continued. ''Just a few more minutes,'' he promised. Then he would go home and sleep.

At 9:25, Mr. Sherpa decided there would be no job for him that day. He picked up his knapsack and turned his back on the intersection.

Tomorrow would be another day.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS & COMPONENTS (77%); IMMIGRATION (68%); CONSTRUCTION (68%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (66%)
COMPANY: CASIO COMPUTER CO LTD (54%)
TICKER: 6952 (TSE) (54%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (93%) NEW YORK, USA (93%) UNITED STATES (93%); GUATEMALA (79%); PAKISTAN (76%)
LOAD-DATE: July 12, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Wednesday morning at Ditmas and Coney Island Avenues in Brooklyn, about 50 men gathered in groups near the Dunkin' Donuts and the Three Star Food Market. After about three hours, the shape-up for day laborers was over. A dozen or so had a job, and the rest went home, to return the next day.(PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW HENDERSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Pakistani men, above, waited near the intersection of Ditmas and Coney Island Avenues. Construction vans picked up only about a dozen men and took them to work that day.(PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW HENDERSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. B4)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

592 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
July 11, 2008 Friday

Late Edition - Final

The Listings: Art
BYLINE: By THE NEW YORK TIMES
SECTION: Section E; Column 0; Movies, Performing Arts/Weekend Desk; Pg. 21
LENGTH: 3040 words
ART

Museums and galleries are in Manhattan unless otherwise noted. Full reviews of recent art shows: nytimes.com/art.

PETER SARKISIAN This artist is best known for projecting videos of naked subjects onto the four sides of Minimalist Plexiglas boxes, with results that are mesmerizing as technology but thin and somewhat maudlin as art. In his current show at I-20, Mr. Sarkisian cuts to the chase.

His latest efforts focus on technology's inner workings while more thoroughly integrating video and sculpture to achieve a kind of Pop-Art Precisionism. Mostly illusory, in-camera assemblages, the works consist of contoured, clear plastic reliefs of engines or engine parts set in the wall; details are filled in by rear-screen video projections and include pistons, gears and ball bearings spinning, whirring and clicking at different rates.

The intense, jewel-like colors constantly mutate and even shift to black and white. Ribbons of words snake among the parts, suggesting dream narratives as unpredictable as machines are reliable. The future of this kind of projection may lie less in art than in advertising, education, Christmas decorations or the lava lamp market, but it definitely holds your attention.

The three ''Extruded Video Engine'' pieces, as they are called, seem to symbolize the intricacy and technological magic of Mr. Sarkisian's art and the hard work it requires. (One, ''Large Shape 1,'' is at left.) The pieces also contrast digital and analog technologies. A fourth video projected through the relief of a large light bulb seems to underscore the discrepancy; it shows a very unmagical bird's-eye view of a welder in his workshop. (Through July 26; 557 West 23rd Street, Chelsea, 212-645-1100, i-20.com.) ROBERTA SMITH

Museums

ASIA SOCIETY AND MUSEUM: 'ARDESHIR MOHASSESS: ART AND SATIRE IN IRAN,' through Aug. 3. Given that his work is found in newspapers and magazines as well as on gallery walls, Westerners might tend to think of Ardeshir Mohassess, in the simplest terms, as Iran's answer to Saul Steinberg. His drawings have been published in The New York Times, as well as in The Nation and Playboy. Yet they are more ambiguous than typical op-ed illustrations and more subtle than most political cartoons. Some 70 of his works are on view in a show assembled by the Iranian-born artists Shirin Neshat and Nicky Nodjoumi. In Mr. Mohassess's drawings the coded beauty of traditional Persian art comes face to face with the ugliness of successive autocratic regimes. 725 Park Avenue, at 70th Street, [phone], asiasociety.org. (Karen Rosenberg)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: 'CLICK! A CROWD-CURATED EXHIBITION,' through Aug. 10. Inspired by ''The Wisdom of Crowds'' by the business writer James Surowiecki, ''Click!'' is more of a sociological experiment than a conventional photography show. Photographers submitted their pictures to the museum Web site for online appraisal by any and all comers. The 78 top-ranked pictures are now on display in a small gallery at the museum. Is the crowd a better judge of artistic merit than an individual expert? You be the judge. 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, [phone], brooklynmuseum.org. (Ken Johnson)

THE JEWISH MUSEUM: 'ACTION/ABSTRACTION: POLLOCK, DE KOONING AND AMERICAN ART, 1940-1976,' through Sept. 21. With the help of some stupendous paintings and a beautiful installation, the same old story of postwar American painting's glory is told a new way: through the rivalry between its most prominent advocates, the art critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg and through their intellectual milieu. 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, [phone], thejewishmuseum.org.

(Roberta Smith)

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: 'J. M. W. TURNER,' through Sept. 21. Unbelievably, this gathering of nearly 150 paintings and watercolors is the first major American retrospective of this great British landscape painter. It provides a sweeping account of Turner's work; his debt to Poussin and Claude Lorrain; his reinvention of history painting; his DeMillean views of Venice; his determined proto-abstract depiction of heavy weather of all kinds, all the while swinging back and forth between overblown and moving, inspired and mechanical. Turner's ambition seems to exclude all else, including the viewer, which gives the work an oddly imperious, impersonal tone. It may explain why you can emerge from the show impressed by the majesty of his vision and yet oddly untouched, even chilled. [phone], metmuseum.org. (Smith)

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: 'DALI: PAINTING AND FILM,' through Sept. 15. Salvador Dali's lifelong preoccupation with film -- so perfectly suited to his hyper-real Surrealist painting -- spanned nearly his entire career, from the groundbreaking ''Chien Andalou'' to little-known works from the 1960s and '70s that capture an early Happening by Dali or presage appropriation art of the 1980s. This exhibition skillfully mixes a sizable number of paintings and drawings with continuous screenings of several films, including the dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's ''Spellbound.'' Because many of Dali's film projects did not come to fruition, the show gives you an unusually intimate sense of his artistic process and his artistic imagination, which was always on fast-forward. [phone], moma.org. (Smith)

NEUE GALERIE: 'WIENER WERKSTaTTE JEWELRY,' through Sept. 1. Founded in 1903, the Wiener Werkstatte, or Vienna Workshops, set out to prove that the modern world still needed fine craftsmanship and good design. Its first product was jewelry, of which this stunning exhibition presents 40 gorgeous examples. Works in gold, silver and semi-precious stones by the workshop's co-founders, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, and others -- including, most notably, Dagobert Peche -- magically blur the line between personal ornament and miniature sculpture. 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street, [phone], neuegalerie.org. (Johnson)

* P.S. 1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER: 'ARCTIC HYSTERIA: NEW ART FROM FINLAND,' through Sept. 15. Urgent emotions and mystical fantasies animate otherwise coolly controlled works in this terrific 16-artist show. See especially Veli Grano's heartbreaking documentary portrait of a Finnish couple who believe that their unborn child was taken by aliens to live on a planet in the Sirius star system, and Salla Tykka's dreamy short film in which a young female voyeur is overwhelmed by the sight of an athletic, bare-chested young man spinning a lasso in a suburban house. 22-25 Jackson Avenue, at 46th Street, Long Island City, Queens, [phone], ps1.org. (Johnson)

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: 'POLAROIDS: MAPPLETHORPE,' through Sept. 7. During his 20s, between 1970 and 1975, Robert Mapplethorpe made more than 1,500 photographs with Polaroid cameras. This may surprise viewers who are more familiar with his posed and polished studio photography of the '80s. ''Polaroids: Mapplethorpe'' offers about 100 examples drawn largely from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, including portraits, still lifes, erotica and works that fall into more than one of these categories. All the themes of Mapplethorpe's mature work -- the body as a site of pain and pleasure, the ideals of classical beauty, the celebration of alternative lifestyles -- are here, but rendered in a more spontaneous medium. [phone], whitney.org.

(Rosenberg)

Galleries: Uptown

'QUIET POLITICS' Works in this elegant group show express political impulses through understated means. '' 'Untitled' Fear'' by Felix Gonzalez-Torres is a Minimalist box made of blue-tinted mirrors. David Hammons's African-American flag -- the Stars and Stripes in black, red and green -- is a sly rejoinder to Jasper Johns's flag paintings. Michael Brown's stainless-steel simulation of a cracked mirror freezes an act of anarchy into a lovely, lacey web. Zwirner & Wirth, 32 East 69th Street, [phone], zwirnerandwirth.com, through Aug. 29. (Johnson)

Galleries: 57th Street

'DEEP COMEDY' Mysteriously humorous highlights of this group show include John Wesley's painting of Donald Duck giving birth and Vija Celmins's painting of a steaming electric frying pan. A video by Michael Smith and Joshua White about a fictitious wellness center spoofs New Age entrepreneurship. Christian Jankowski's mock-documentary film in which nonprofessional child actors play famous artists discussing their works satirizes art-world language and customs to surprisingly touching effect. Marian Goodman, 24 West 57th Street, [phone], mariangoodman.com, through July 30. (Johnson)

Galleries: SoHo

DAWN MELLOR: 'A CURSE ON YOUR WALLS' Large canvases illustrating scenes from a punk, post-apocalyptic version of ''The Wizard of Oz'' by this English painter are darkly comical and rousingly ambitious. In the rear gallery hang 71 portraits of famous people and celebrities who, with painterly panache, Ms. Mellor has subjected to all kinds of comic, bizarre and horrific transformations. Team, 83 Grand Street, between Wooster and Greene Streets, [phone], teamgallery.com, through Aug. 8. (Johnson)

Galleries: Chelsea

'CROP ROTATION' The most impressive piece in this perplexing group show, organized by the independent curator Clarissa Dalrymple, is a pair of enormous black circles painted by Neil Campbell in a corner of the main gallery. Giving the illusion of openings into infinite space, they suggest Anish Kapoor on a low budget. Don't miss Jeffrey Wells's video projection of an almost invisible line wavering in another corner of the gallery. Marianne Boesky Gallery, 509 West 24th Street, [phone], marianneboeskygallery.com, through Aug. 15. (Johnson)

'I WONT GROW UP' Artworks that appear to be made for or by children make up this entertaining 30-artist show. Mark Fox's video ''Nutzilla,'' in which a giant Mr. Peanut violently attacks the Cincinnati Art Museum, is hilarious. George Stoll's hand-made, child-size costumes, one a skeleton and the other a clown, are delicately evocative. Tim Liddy's painted simulation of an old Twister game box is an extraordinary feat of trompe l'oeil realism. Cheim & Read, 547 West 25th Street, [phone], cheimread.com, through Aug. 29. (Johnson)

TETSUMI KUDO This show introduces the Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo (1935-1990) with 26 derisively beautiful, macabre sculptures that examine the human condition and find it wanting. Fluorescent colors and mutant forms (plants sprouting phalluses) convey a post-apocalyptic tone not surprising for an artist in postwar Japan. ''Survival of the Avant-Garde'' (1985) is a plastic skull whose body has melted into a swirl of brightly colored thread, possibly because of an atom bomb. Several works in birdcages involve distorted faces and spidery hands, which evoke the eccentrics and grotesques of Japanese folklore, but Mr. Kudo also fits in all over the map of Neo-Dada and its discontents. Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 West 24th Street, [phone], through Aug. 15. (Smith)

'NOT SO SUBTLE SUBTITLE' Selected by the artist Matthew Bannon, this intermittently absorbing, often puzzling show of mostly small works on paper by 24 artists has an insiderish feel. It includes Christopher Williams's photograph of the blank white back cover of an exhibition catalog; John Stezaker's collages in which postcards depicting rocks are pasted over film stills of lovers; and Nick Mauss's small abstractions made by scratching through aluminum leaf into black gesso grounds. Casey Kaplan, 525 West 21st Street, [phone], caseykaplangallery.com, through Aug. 1. (Johnson)

'RETROSPECTIVE' With Marcel Duchamp's miniature career survey in a briefcase as its centerpiece, this sprawling group show presents works by various artists that function as compendiums of their earlier efforts. One fascinating room presents written and photographic documentation of all the performances that Chris Burden did from 1971 to '73. Another has all the films and videos that Douglas Gordon has produced since 1992, running on 50 monitors. Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, [phone], gagosian.com, through Aug. 22. (Johnson)

'THE STRANGER' Seven sculptures by as many artists cast an existentialist spell. Richard Jackson's ''Big Baby,'' a large, yellow smiley face made of shiny plastic, has pudgy, humanoid limbs. Berlinde de Bruyckere's wax torso in an old vitrine looks like a remnant of a medieval sculpture crossed with a slab of meat. George Segal's blue woman at a cafe table reads from the novel by Albert Camus that gives the show its title. Yvon Lambert, 550 West 21st Street, [phone], yvon-lambert.com, through July 31. (Johnson)

Galleries: Other

CLIFF EVANS: 'EMPYREAN' Short and mesmerizing, Mr. Evans's digitally animated video ''Empyrean'' presents surrealistic scenes of war, tourism and industrial development, populated by soldiers, movie stars, porn models, construction workers, terrorists, politicians and other figures lifted from mass-media sources. As the view moves slowly through panoramic desert and mountain landscapes, it is as if God were surveying the mess humankind has made of the world. Luxe Gallery, 53 Stanton Street, at Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, [phone], luxegallery.net, through July 26. (Johnson)

Public Art

'THE NEW YORK CITY WATERFALLS'Walt Whitman would be pleased. The four waterfalls that the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has temporarily insinuated along Whitman's beloved East River (one on Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, a fourth on Governors Island) tweak the ecstatic experience of city life that is especially palpable at water's edge. Forming a mammoth yet oddly discreet work of shoreline land art, they are spectacular only in the cumulative sense, although the top level of Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport is a great place from which to pick out all four. Their scaffoldings and standard New York apartment riser pipes make them, strictly speaking, fountains. But they are also mirages that add uncanny signs of a primordial Eden that never was. Faking natural history with basic plumbing, they form little rips in the urban fabric through which you glimpse hints of a lost paradise, and sharpen your sense of Whitman's, the one you are already in. Pier 35 in Lower Manhattan, the eastern foot of the Brooklyn Bridge; between Piers 4 and 5 near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade; north shore of Governors Island; nycwaterfalls.org, through Oct. 13. (Smith)

Last Chance

CHARLES JUHASZ-ALVARADO: 'COMPLICATED STORIES: SCULPTURES AND WRITTEN TESTIMONIES, 1998-2008' If Mr. Juhasz-Alvarado were a less inventive and industrious sculptor, you might think he had missed his calling as a magic-realist novelist. Born in 1965 and based in San Juan, P.R., he has been included in numerous international biennial exhibitions. This entertaining, intermittently inspired 10-year survey of expansive, narrative works that are full of visual puns, surreal juxtapositions and political metaphors is his first solo show in New York. Exit Art, 475 10th Avenue, at 36th Street, [phone], exitart.org; closes on Saturday. (Johnson)

SARAH BRAMAN: 'LOVE SONGS' In its extensive use not only of found materials, but also of found furniture, Sarah Braman's latest contests between painting and sculpture are larger and more ambitious, if also a little more generic. Her tilted structures now incorporate parts of desks, shelves and car panels, a device that makes them more difficult to understand from any single position. The greater complexity also creates more opportunities for applied color and brushwork, which, in turn, coax you to circumnavigate the pieces. The resulting unfolding and interplay of hand-made and mass-produced is unexpectedly rewarding, although it would be better if the level of slovenliness were lower. Museum 52, 95 Rivington Street, between Orchard and Stanton Streets, Lower East Side, [phone], museum52.com; closes on Saturday . (Smith)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: '$;MURAKAMI' Bring the kids and the shopping-centered tweens. This survey of Takashi Murakami, the artist frequently called the Japanese Andy Warhol, has it all: immense, toylike sculptures; an animated cartoon that rivals Disney; and a fully functioning Louis Vuitton boutique (Brooklyn's first!) selling Murakami bags. But it also elucidates the trajectory of an artist who began by recycling Japanese popular culture and then gradually figured out how to go deeper, harnessing Japanese traditions of painting, craft and spirituality. The art-commerce, high-low conundrums are fun, but the steady improvement in the paintings is the real heart of the matter. Along with the animated cartoons, which should please aesthetes of all ages, there is a moral component as well. 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, [phone], brooklynmuseum.org; closes on Sunday. (Smith)

'PRUESSPRESS' Produced on a makeshift press overseen by one of the gallery's owners and displayed mostly frameless or on knocked-together tables, the prints in this exhibition represent the efforts of nearly 30 young artists and provide a heady sense of the ecumenical, do-it-yourself nature of the current scene. The results are also worthy of a museum, or at least its project space. Rental, 120 East Broadway, at Allen Street, Lower East Side, [phone], rental-gallery.com; closes on Saturday. (Smith)

'WHO'S AFRAID OF JASPER JOHNS?' Demonically aerobic for the brain and eye, this rambunctious show, orchestrated by the art dealer Gavin Brown and the artist Urs Fischer, conflates two group exhibitions and several decades (but mostly the 1980s and since), styles, art markets and notions of transgression. Highly site-specific, it may also be one of the last words in appropriation art, institutional critique and artistic intervention, not to mention post-modern photographs and, especially, wallpaper. Nearly every juxtaposition tells a story, one that is up to you to devise. The network of references unleashed here defies any visual or interpretive cartography, which may make its exploration all the more worthwhile. Tony Shafrazi Gallery, 544 West 26th Street, [phone], tonyshafrazigallery.com; closes on Saturday. (Smith)